


Snowmelt

by emungere



Category: Tennis RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-06
Updated: 2009-12-06
Packaged: 2018-02-28 10:01:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2728211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emungere/pseuds/emungere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marat takes Feli skiing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snowmelt

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to Chrissy for the beta :)
> 
> Also, this is fiction, none of it really happened.

Feli kicked snow off his boots and wished he hadn’t worn the tight jeans. The cold ate through them and bit at him anywhere denim touched skin--which was everywhere. He pulled his hat down and wrapped his scarf tighter and thought of ways to kill Marat. 

Marat, cheerful, pink-cheeked, jacket unzipped, came out of the lodge carrying two sets of skis over his shoulder.

“The powder’s supposed to be really good!” he called.

Feli thought about avalanches and trees that might pop unexpectedly out of the snow and catch overly peppy Russian assholes in the crotch, knocking the schadenfreude right out of them.

“I don’t care about the fucking powder,” he said, but not with any real heat. He had no real heat left. Marat had told him on the way up that if you stopped shivering it was a bad sign, so in that regard at least Feli was doing quite well.

“You’ll have fun,” Marat assured him, _again_.

“I’ll break a leg, end my career, and spend the next six months in a hospital. In a body cast. They probably don’t even turn the heat on in hospitals around here. They probably _freeze_ you better.”

Marat slung an arm around Feli’s shoulders and guided him toward the ski slope. “You’re lucky you’re allowed to do this stuff,” he said. “I had my legs insured for a while. Fucking Lloyd’s wanted to tell me where to take a shit, let alone where to take a vacation.”

“Excuse me, I have an insurance policy to sign.”

Marat laughed his big laugh with his head thrown back and his eyes crinkling at the edges, and Feli forgot to be angry with him. For about 2.4 seconds. It was hard to stomp in the rigid, plastic ski boots, but he tried.

“You know,” Marat said, “people make themselves unhappy. It’s a choice. Be happy, be unhappy. Why choose to be unhappy?”

“My choice was the Seychelles. Yet here I am. Because my big, stupid--” He searched for a word bad enough and completely failed to find one. “-- _hairy_ boyfriend doesn’t do what he’s told.”

Marat grinned his shit-eating grin at that, as Feli had known he would. The hairy part and the boyfriend part would both appeal to him. Marat had recently started talking about _telling_ people, conveniently after his own career was over, Feli had noted.

“Surprises are good for the soul,” Marat said.

“I don’t have anything to wear. Still.” His suitcase was full of small shorts and smaller swimwear.

“Didn’t I say I’d buy you anything you wanted?”

He had, and to be fair, he’d done it, but the quick swing around the shops they’d taken had barely fitted Feli out for the ski slopes. The rented boots that hooked onto the skis were currently the only boots he had. His jeans were already wet in places, but damned if he was going to admit that Marat had been right about getting ski pants. They were uniformly _ugly_.

Feli took a look at their surroundings and stopped dead. “I thought we were going to the easy hill.”

“This is the easy hill.”

“No, the easy hill is over there.” Feli pointed to the shallow slope where kids held onto a tow rope that chugged slowly up to the top. It looked almost doable. “This is clearly the _death_ hill.”

It would be a serious hike to get to the top on foot. The chairlift ran at an angle that made him dizzy just looking at it. People whizzed down the slope apparently with no plan at all, and every possibility of hitting innocent by-skiers.

“It’s for beginners, I promise you. Come on. You’re not starting on the bunny slope.”

“Why not?”

“Pride?”

“Try again.”

“Fear of getting run down by toddlers?”

“...Fine.”

Feli wasn’t scared of heights. He wasn’t even scared of falling off of heights. It was just that looking down into that much empty space made him want to vomit. He held onto Marat’s arm in the chairlift and closed his eyes.

“When we get off, there’ll be a little hill to go down,” Marat told him.

There was, in a manner of speaking. It was a short, steep ramp, made entirely of ice, that led down from the chairlift to the top of the slope. Feli fell down at the bottom of it. Marat dragged him out of the way of the next skier and helped him up.

Feli felt as though the heat of his glare should melt at least snow if not Marat’s actual skin.

“Are you really not having fun?” Marat said.

It was so seldom Marat sounded uncertain about anything. Feli sighed.

“I’m sure it’ll be okay once I get started,” he lied.

Marat brightened up immediately and started giving him instructions. He was a good teacher when he cared to be. Within an hour, Feli could get halfway down the slope without falling on his ass, and he had to admit--not out loud, obviously--that he could see why people did this.

After two hours, he was forced to admit out loud that he should’ve gotten the ski pants.

“I can’t feel my knees,” he said. His jeans were entirely soaked, and in some places frozen.

Marat knelt in front of him, took off his gloves, and put big warm hands over his knees. He smiled up at Feli as if that fixed everything, and for a moment, it did. Feli put his own cold hands on Marat’s cheeks, and Marat kissed the inside of his wrist. If they _weren’t_ going to tell people, Feli needed somehow to be more careful about things like this.

“Time to go, yeah?” Marat said.

“Yes.”

***

After a bath, alone, Feli managed to apologize for being kind of a bitch all day.

“You are what you are,” Marat said, and pulled him down in front of the fire. His smile said that Marat liked what he was. Feli scooted into the circle of his arms, leaned back against the hard length of his body, and felt warm for the first time all day.

“Do you still work out?” Feli asked, as Marat’s arm draped over his waist and Marat’s hand spread out across his stomach.

“Of course. You want me to turn into one of those fat guys with spots on their hands who live on cigars and vodka? You would dump me in two seconds.”

“I wouldn’t,” Feli said. He looked at Marat’s long fingers, the leather band around his wrist. He was surprised to find he meant it. Could picture it, even. Marat’s descent into comfortable flab would probably be combined with excessive facial hair. In his vision of the future, Feli’s own body was of course still tournament-ready. He smiled to himself. He’d keep that illusion for a while.

Marat’s hand moved down to his waistband and then up again, taking the hem of his shirt with it.

“Pretty,” Marat said, when he had Feli’s chest and stomach bared.

Feli stretched and squirmed down Marat’s body until he’d worked his way out of his shirt, leaving it in Marat’s hands. He smiled back and up and then turned over to drape an arm over Marat’s hip.

Marat dropped the shirt, got his hands under Feli’s arms, and hauled him up until their faces were level again.

“I was going to blow you,” Feli said.

“I know. I’m not letting you.”

“Why not?”

“Cause I froze your balls off all day.”

He tipped Feli onto his back and pulled his sweatpants down to his knees. Feli’s cock was already starting to stir, more from the weight of Marat’s attention than any particular touch.

Marat stroked over his thighs, up and down his chest, roughened skin rubbing over his nipples. Feli lay back and let him. His eyes half closed on their own. He felt hazy, almost sleepy, as Marat’s hands moved down his stomach, parted his thighs, came back up to pinch and pull at his nipples until Feli let out a gasp.

His cock was fully hard now, and it curved up against his stomach. Marat curled his palm over it. His calluses were points of more intense sensation when he moved his hand, just rubbing little circles at first. Feli reached for his wrist, but Marat pushed his hand gently away.

“Don’t,” Marat said. “Let me.”

Feli shut his eyes all the way and relaxed into a warm and boneless sprawl on the floor. Marat kept it slow, played Feli’s body with his hands and mouth until Feli’s fingers and toes were curling into the rug.

Marat’s hand spread out wide across his chest, and Marat bent to lap over and over at the head of his cock. Minutes passed. Feli saw the fire flicker behind his closed lids, smelled the smoke and Marat’s shampoo. Marat’s fingers skated over the shaft. It was all so light, so barely there that when Feli came, it took him by surprise.

He shuddered, and his body arched up off the floor. Marat slid his mouth over Feli’s cock and sucked so hard that Feli cried out, almost in pain from so much sudden sensation. He stayed taut through the aftershocks, straining into Marat’s mouth and hands, breathing in sharp gasps that left him dizzy.

When Marat licked him and pulled back, Feli collasped and used the next few minutes to remember how to breathe. Marat kissed him until breathing didn’t seem worth the trouble.

A few minutes later, cleaned up, still trying to remember how to think, Feli lay with Marat spooned around him and kissing the back of his neck.

“You really hate the cold so much?”

_Hell, yes_ , Feli wanted to say, but bit it back. Marat’s neutral tone suggested this would be a good time to think before he spoke.

“I don’t _hate_ it, like, all on its own. I don’t hate the concept of cold. I kind of hate being cold.”

“I would buy you warmer things.”

Feli kissed the tip of his finger. “Marat. I do actually have my own money.” He tried to say it gently.

About a month in (dated from the first time they had sex), Feli had realized that Marat had never once let him pay for dinner, for movie tickets, for anything. Feli had tried to put that right and smacked into some non-enlightened portion of Marat’s brain that said Feli was _his_ and he would therefore _provide_ for him.

Feli thought he was pretty good at maintaining the illusion that he tolerated Marat’s behavior on this front because he liked him so much. The truth was that he _loved it_ in some deeply stupid unmacho way that he didn’t especially like to think about, ever.

So he reminded Marat of his tolerance, and Marat overrode him, and everything was fine. Feli suspected this was not quite what his mother had meant long ago when she told him all close relationships were about compromise.

Marat got his stubborn on and pulled Feli closer against his chest. “It would be my responsibility. If--”

“If?”

“Not all year round,” Marat said quickly. “But I have that apartment in Moscow now.”

“Are you asking me to move in with you?”

“Yes?” The word hit a quavering note of uncertainty. Marat cleared his throat. “Yes. I am asking.”

Warmth spread out from Feli’s chest to join the heat of Marat behind him and the baking air from the fire in front. He squeezed Marat’s hand.

“Yes,” he said.


End file.
